Time magazine's person of the year 2011 isn't a celebrity, an artist, an entrepreneur or a politician. The "person" is the anonymous marker of a global movement: The Protester (although it should be noted that this is not the first occasion where Time has picked a group as its annual figurehead, having previously celebrated "The American Soldier" in 2003, "The Good Samaritans" in 2005, and "You" in 2006.

As Time's editor, Rick Stengel, argues, to celebrate the protester is to defend the idea "that individual action can bring collective, colossal change". This collectivity has spread like wildfire in the last year or so – each protest, revolution and occupation triggering new uprisings against state oppression, class inequality and police brutality. "From the Arab spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow" declares the Time cover, with Stengel pointing out "the word protest has appeared in newspapers and online exponentially more this past year than at any other time in history".

But how to represent this collective subject, to give a face to this global anger? It is hard for the media and the state to forsake their need to celebrate (and punish) charismatic figureheads, especially when it comes to protest movements. But the anonymity, the leaderlessness (which is not to say structurelessness) of many of the global protests are indications of their strength and of their mass character.

Previously known for the Obama "Hope" poster, Shepard Fairey's illustration of the global protester reveals some of the problems with trying to represent the character of recent resistance. At first glance, the woman looks to be a fusion of several kinds of protester – a woollen beanie hat, a teargas-preventing scarf partially covering a female face. This woman could equally be protesting in Egypt as in New York, or both.

Time's person of the year issue. Image by Ted Soqui/Corbis Ted Soqui/Corbis

In fact, as the LA Times points out, Fairey based his illustration on a photograph of a protester from Occupy LA, Sarah Mason, who was wearing a woolly hat and a scarf with a red "99%" written across it. Mason, when informed that her image had been used for the Time magazine cover, gave the perfect response, in keeping with the egoless nature of the movement: "It's not about me".

But while celebrating the protester, whoever he or she may be, we would do well to look behind the feelgood images and sanctioned defiance. As has been pointed out many times this year, protest is hardly celebrated evenly: while European and US leaders were keen to celebrate the "democratising" dimensions of the Arab spring, they were far less keen when protest happened closer to home. The police and the courts will stop at nothing to prosecute student, anti-tax and anti-austerity protesters, those involved in the unrest in August, and anyone else they feel has disrupted the order of things. Some protests, for example those in London over the disputed election results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, receive scant media attention, even when large numbers of arrests have been made.

Behind the sanitised image of the generic protester lie real people beaten and killed by police and armies, imprisoned, teargassed, tortured. The paradox of protest is that for every march that changes very little, there is the equal chance it might change everything. It's hardly likely those with the most to lose are going to roll over without a fight.

In the meantime, those, such as Legal Defence and Monitoring Group, who work tirelessly to defend protesters, observe protests, and support those arrested and injured by the police, should be backed. Behind every "generic" protester is the threat of real state retribution: behind every celebrated protest are many more that are ignored.